Thursday, February 27, 2014

Jan Brewer, Governor of
Arizona finally vetoed the bill that would have allowed discrimination against
Gays and Lesbians for religious beliefs. Did she do this because such a bill was
blatantly discriminatory? No. Did she do so because such a bill would pretty
obviously Unconstitutional? No. Did she veto it because, as Jon Stewart
insisted, it was morally repugnant? No. Did she do it because it was a really
stupid idea? No. Perhaps she insightfully realized it was mixing religion with
politics? No. Maybe because she realized it was inherently unworkable? I don’t
think so. Did she do it because she bowed to pressure from her two State
Senators and others? Well, yes and no.

In the best tradition of
American capitalism she did it simply because it was bad for business. Business
leaders pointed out to her that would stigmatize the State and thus might
affect tourism and business in general, might result in people boycotting the
state, and, perhaps more important of all, it might make them risk losing the
Super Bowl (I think I recall they previously lost a Super Bowl because they
opposed a Martin Luther King holiday).

In any case, after milking it
for a certain amount of media time, she vetoed it. I’m not certain that anyone involved in this
failed endeavor considered the basic fact that such legislation violates a
basic principle of modern, large-scale, industrial, capitalistic, urban life.
In small communities of the past, and to a certain extent in remaining rural
small communities, social transactions, including business ones, take place on
a personal, face-to-face basis. Most everyone knows everyone else, your word is
your bond, and any potential personal problems are easily avoided.

In large-scale societies,
where most everyone lives these days, personal factors are rarely involved in
any business transactions. The overwhelming majority of our transactions are
fundamentally based on legal contracts. While you don’t necessarily have to
actually sign a contract to purchase something (although often you do), all
transactions are basically legal agreements. That is, a merchant agrees to sell
you something at a fixed or an ageed-upon price, and you agree to buy it at
that price. You are both obligated to that contract. Both the buyer’s and
seller’s personal beliefs have nothing whatsoever to do with it (other than
their respective beliefs about the quality or usefulness of the object being
purchased).

Obviously if personal
beliefs, like religious ones, or others such as gun rights, are introduced into
such a system, potential chaos would occur. You could never be certain that you
could purchase something if the potential seller imposed his or her personal
religious or other beliefs onto the
transaction. Christians could discriminate against Muslims, or even women
wearing headscarves, Muslims could discriminate against Christians, especially
if they smoked or drank, and so on.

It is true that you often see
signs like “No shoes, no shirt, no service,” or “We reserve the right to refuse
service,” but such reservations have mostly to do with cleanliness and health
or rowdy behaviors, irrespective of the individual’s religious or other
beliefs, and they minimize misunderstandings and potential problems.

In short, our system for the
vast majority of our transactions allows no place for personal beliefs,
religious or otherwise. Trying to introduce personal beliefs into such a system
would be totally unworkable. In this Phoenix case you would often have to guess
if individuals were Gay or Lesbian, you would have to be suspicious of any same
sex pair, and so on. And, of course, if it became legal to discriminate against
Gays and Lesbians, why not Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Muslims, Buddhists,
Catholics, Jews, atheists, short people, tall people, redheads, midgets, anyone
who did not share your own personal beliefs, and how would you ever know. As
there are hundreds of different religions, with all kinds of strange and
bizarre beliefs, the very idea of discriminating on religious grounds is
absurd. I don’t think we need random discrimination to potentially enter our
lives because some Christians do not approve of others on the basis of their
presumed sex lives. And what’s with this obsession over Gay sex anyway? We don’t
ordinarily worry or wonder much about heterosexual sexual behavior, even though
it involves in some (unknown and uncounted) cases similar sexual practices, and
who knows what kinds of other “kinky” sex. Do most people ask their friends and
relatives what kind of sex they engage in? Do most people even care? We should
stop wasting time with clueless, harebrained, and ridiculous ideas that will
never float and will surely fail.

If you believe in equality, if you believe in
standing up for the rights of all, especially for people most affected by
bigotry and discrimination, then you have no choice but to be present and
accounted for when it comes to standing up for gays and lesbians in our
society.

Monday, February 24, 2014

“East is east and West is
West…” and whether the “Twain” shall ever meet seems unlikely given the
apparent determination of the U.S. and the E. U. to divide the Ukraine from
Russia, meddling, as usual, in far-flung places probably not their business.

John McCain, perhaps the most
malicious and reliable meddler of all, has recently announced that “They” want
to be part of the West. By “they” he obviously has in mind Ukranians in general,
rather than merely those Ukrainians living in the western part of the country.
This I would think is true because he is obviously opposed to partitioning the
country and, in his usual simplistic black and white approach to all political
issues, is unable to deal with anything more complex than “shoot first, ask
questions later.” If he has in mind only those Ukrainians living in the western
part of that nation his claim they want to be part of the West may be true. But
if he is really speaking for all Ukrainians it is not at all true. Ukrainians
living in the East, who mostly speak Russian, and have long ties to Russia, do
not want to be part of the West, preferring to stay more closely tied to Russia.
In McCain’s view, or lack of view, these people are simply not important, not
part of the problem, not even relevant. McCain,
and others like him, cold war warriors extraordinaire, will do anything to
oppose Russia, no matter how unrealistic or irresponsible. There is a long
history of Russian/Ukrainian ties, many, perhaps even most Ukrainians speak
Russian, Ukraine is clearly within Russia’s sphere of influence, their
neighbor, unlike the U.S. thousands of miles away. Of course Putin wants to
continue his influence there, and treating him as if he has no business “meddling”
there is simply absurd. The U.S. approach to foreign policy, which consists of
meddling all over the world, demands that everyone do what it is we want them
to do, and if they do not, sanctions, or worse. There is good reason people
everywhere believe the U.S. is the greatest danger to peace. How many Russian
drones are flying over other countries killing civilians? Other countries are
not supposed to have national interests that are not in sync with ours. Susan
Rice has also made this simplistic claim, that “They” want to be part of the
West.

This use of the generic “They”
has become commonplace in American politics. Politicians on both sides of the
aisle (a completely artificial arrangement as there are so few differences
between them) commonly speak of what it is the “American people” (they) want or
believe. Of course there are no generic “American people,” so the American
people they are referring to are simply those they think or pretend are those
who they fantasize think the same way they do even, though as often than not
they probably don’t. The English language as used in politics, is a far cry
from the English language we think ordinarily think of, as George Orwell
pointed out some time ago in his famous essay, “Politics and the English
Language.”

Someone has said that “You
campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose.” There is, I think, a grain of
truth in that, but nowadays I think it is more true that you campaign in
gobblegook and then govern with simplification, obfuscation, fabrication, and falsification.
Hey, it’s the American way.

The American approach to the
world is simple: we are good, they are bad, except for the Israelis who are, of
course, as we are, always good.

Right and wrong
are determined by the people who hold positions of authority, that's the way it
has always been so how then can anyone know this truth you speak of? Don't you
see that truth long ago became a shadow of itself, it's a mere echo of the past
now... The world is one big moral gray area, it just makes you feel safer that
it can be categorized into good and bad that's not actually how it works.”

Friday, February 21, 2014

What passes for common sense
in one era changes in another, and common sense is often not sensible. When I
was a teen it apparently was regarded as common sense that a baby’s bottle had
to be warmed before feeding him or her. That is no longer the case. Similarly,
it was common sense that girls/women could not go swimming when they were
menstruating. And some of us even believed it was common sense that eating
watermelon seeds would bring on appendicitis. I’m sure we had all kinds of
other common sense notions that we no longer hold. It is not difficult to
understand why common sense changes over time.

It is not so easy for me to
understand why common human decency has also changed over time, or at least so
it seems. Perhaps a good first example of this is the recent report that
teachers (or someone) took school lunches out of the hands of some children,
put them in the garbage, because their parents had not paid some kind of fee on
time, or perhaps at all, thus shaming and humiliating the children in front of
their peers. I might be wrong about this but I do not believe this would have
ever happened to a child when I was in school. No teacher or person I can
imagine in our town would have done such a thing to a child, had the same
situation prevailed, which happily it did not. I’m pretty certain such a thing
would have been unthinkable. There are undoubtedly reasons for this which I
will not bother to mention, but the bottom line is that basic human decency
would have prevailed. Not so today, apparently.

But the current lack of
common decency goes much further than this one simple example. Throughout most
of my life there has always been respect for the Office of the President, if
not necessarily for the individual occupying it. Of course there were occasional
times when someone might have disrespected the President and perhaps violated
the proper respect for the office, but such occasions were rare. This seems to
be no longer the case, especially since President Obama has held the Office . You
might well say that indecency towards Obama and the Presidency has virtually
reached fever proportions at the moment what with the vitriol and unconcealed
hatred directed at him on a now daily basis, primarily by Republicans. When
someone like Ted Nugent calls Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and still has
influence with major Republican politicians that even ask him to campaign with
them, you realize just how far indecency has crept into our lives. Similarly,
when a woman during a Republican meeting says Obama should be hanged and no one
objects there is no longer even a pretense of decency. There are many more
instances of this kind so there is no doubt indecency is now common in our
politics. In the particular case of Obama there is obviously a racial bias at
play, a bias that was at first covered up initially at least with code words,
but more recently it is not even hidden any longer.

I do not believe this trend
towards indecency began with Obama. I think it began at first with President
Clinton. When Republicans could not defeat him with ballots, under the tutelage
of Rove and others, what was once a legitimate political party began to morph
into little more than a criminal enterprise, willing to use anything and
everything to bring him down. Outright lying became commonplace (did Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others ever tell the truth about anything), the technique
of “roviation” was created, human decency disappeared, and what I termed the
“Brafia” was born.

At this moment human decency
has disappeared from Republican ranks almost entirely. This can be seen clearly
in their attitude towards their fellow citizens. They are entirely unmoved by
the plight of the poor and the unemployed. They are opposed to unemployment
insurance, minimum wages, Medicare, Medicaid, universal health care, unions,
legal abortions, fair pay for all, taxes on the obscenely wealthy, public
education, infrastructure improvements, and apparently anything that might make
life better for ordinary citizens. Find, if you will, or can, any shred of
human decency here, any empathy, any understanding, any desire to help others,
even any interest in so-called “Christian charity.” What was once a legitimate
political party has now become a hateful, racist, indecent, uncooperative, semi-criminal
organization, primarily devoted to the destruction of the Obama Presidency and taking
from the poor to give to the rich. Having alienated women, Blacks, Hispanics, Gays
and Lesbians, Muslims, and other minorities, virtually everyone except White
Trash like Ted Nugent, they think they may have a chance to take over control
of the Senate. They might. Welcome to the reality of a culture without either
common sense or common decency.

Monday, February 17, 2014

One reason I find it so
difficult to blog anymore is that many things that seem to me to be complete
“no-brainers” are apparently accepted by the MSM and others as perfectly
respectable subjects for discussion. I applaud John Kerry’s recent statement
that climate change is no longer a subject for debate. Of course this won’t
matter to those who know nothing but continue to debate it anyway. As far as I
am concerned those who deny climate change and its implications are basically
trying to kill us all. Climate change denial is a true no-brainer.

Stand-your-ground laws are
another perfect example of a no-brainer. If young black males are commonly
regarded as intrinsically “threatening,” and if your perceived fear of that
threat is all you need to “stand-your-ground” and shoot them, why should we not
just shoot them on sight? Oh, I guess that is pretty much what is happening.
When four black teen-agers, sitting in their car listening to loud music, can
be shot, one to death, and the others shot at, apparently to try to kill them
also, it seems to me the laws have
become themselves no-brainers. In this recent case it appears that murdering
someone is irrelevant, whereas failing to kill the others is being punished. To
me this case is a true no-brainer. I guess I need to change my attitude about
loud music, get a gun, keep it loaded in my glove compartment, so that when I
next hear loud country/western music, which I absolutely detest, I can shoot at
will, claiming that I was being threatened by a bunch of cowboys (but only if
they were Black cowboys). Stand your ground laws are absurd. People have always
had the right to defend themselves. The stand your ground laws as they
currently exist are little more than a license to kill young Black males on
sight.

To me much of everything we
do seems to be a no-brainer. Our seemingly endless, obviously failing “War on
Drugs,” is most certainly a no-brainer. Our approach to Iran is a complete
no-brainer, our uncritical support of Israeli war crimes is a no-brainer, our
meddling in the Ukraine is a no-brainer, ditto Syria, and the many other
countries we somehow think we should be able to control. Our attacks on Iraq
and Afghanistan were no-brainers to being with, and trying to maintain the
American “Empire” will be an ultimate no-brainer, just as Osama bin Laden
planned.

Of course domestically we see
the no-brainership approach to our lives and culture in a truly pure form. Our children, whom we will depend
on for our future, are being saddled with debts they cannot pay, and jobs they
cannot find, so they are being economically (and probably psychologically)
crippled for life. Where we should be happy to educate them for free, the banks
and others have turned them into cash cows. This development is probably the
most egregious no-brainer of all. Our infrastructure is obsolete, trillions of
dollars behind in maintenance, and virtually antique compared to Asian and
European developments, at least with respect to transportation, our schools are
crumbling, our Health Care is a disgrace even with Obamacare, when compared to
other advanced nations.

When it comes to politics we
have completely failed what our Founding Fathers envisioned, indeed what any
sentient being might envision. Our acclaimed two party system has degenerated
into basically a one party system, and even that is dysfunctional as half of
the one party system refuses to participate in governing, preferring instead to
simply oppose whatever the other half proposes. With no plans of their own they
simply refuse to cooperate thus making it virtually impossible to deal with the
real problems that confront us. As long as the rich get richer, and the poor
get poorer, the status quo continues. But wait! We may be about to raise the
starvation minimum wage to the almost starvation level, perhaps even a
“bipartisan” effort that will do virtually nothing to change the obscene
inequalities that currently exist. But let’s not think about that, thinking in
our culture has apparently become itself a no-brainer.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Kati, you are the only one I
can talk with. I am concerned that I am completely losing interest in most
everything. I don’t know if this is simply a result of age or if it has
something to do with what is actually happening (or not happening, as the case
may be). When you live in a small town there are no psychiatrists, at best
maybe a social worker or two, but in any case you know them personally and
anonymity is not guaranteed. Similarly, when you live in a small town in which
90% or more are essentially right-wing zealots you really can’t discuss
politics, unless, of course, you begin with the assumption that President Obama
is a foreigner who does not belong in office, is a socialist, communist, homosexual,
fascist, dictator, liar, anti-Christ, and all-around terrible guy who is having
an affair with Beyonce.

Not only that, you are
virtually at the mercy of the Main Stream Media, a conglomeration dedicated to
making sure you will never, ever, get any real news other than what happens to
be their most recent obsession. In this case it happens to be Governor Chris Christy
of New Jersey. I confess I really don’t want to hear any more about the
problems of New Jersey Fats, at least until he goes on trial, goes to jail, or
in the most unlikely outcome happens to be exonerated. Personally, I have no
doubt that whether he is linked to the bridge closure or not he has almost
certainly used state and federal funds inappropriately, probably illegally, is
a first-class bully, and represents the worst example of a state Governor. But
I do not want a daily account of how many subpoenas have been served, what they
are looking for, what their names are, and what this may or not mean for the
ongoing investigation. Just let me know when and if this giant bag of
protoplasm is found either non-guilty or guilty. While I admire and respect
Rachel Maddow I think she has gone totally overboard on this particular
subject. I refuse to believe there are not other news stories, both
domestically and foreign that are not more important than the details of the
fat man’s scandal. Don’t be surprised, however, if he ends up being the Republican
candidate for President as the other possibilities are so appallingly awful there
may be no other choice. You can’t set the bar much lower than George W. Bush,
the worst President ever except, perhaps, for Saint Ronnie the Moron.

I guess if it weren’t for the
problems of New Jersey Fats we might have to actually hear about the predictably
failing Israel/Palestinian talks, maybe our meddling in the Ukraine (none of
our business), meddling in Syria (none of our business), meddling in Afghanistan
(none of our business) meddling in Iran (none of our business), meddling with
China (none of our business), meddling in fact all over the world (none of our
business). But such are the problems of empire (whether you can afford them or
not).

And what’s with our
badmouthing the Sochi Olympics? It’s as if we really want them to fail. “Sochi
was a terrible choice,” “there won’t be any snow,” there are bound to be
terrorist attacks, Gays will be discriminated against, the hotel rooms are
terrible, you can’t drink the water, the games were far too expensive, and so
on. While I cannot claim to “be in the know,” it seems to me the games are
going fine. I suppose there are problems but athletes are still competing,
winning medals, engaging in precisely the competitions they are supposed to be
competing in, and the show goes on. Of course we can’t resist making fun of
President Putin, bare-chested and all, spending foolishly on the Olympics,
applauding the winners, Russian or not, and in general apparently making a
success of the games. Why should we not appreciate the success of the games
rather than wishing for their failure? Because, I guess, we are Americans,
exceptional, and the Russians are Russians. Kati, does any of this make any
sense to you? It doesn’t to me. Communism failed some time ago, Capitalism is
failing now, it’s only a matter of time. Maybe we should try harder to get
along?

“He was born
with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”

Friday, February 07, 2014

John Boehner is so well known
for closing his remarks with “Where are the jobs?” I’m beginning to think that
might actually be his middle name. It is an interesting gambit because it
reveals a genuine con man engaged in one of the biggest cons ever. Boehner is
not stupid, at least I don’t think he is. He must know that the question “where
are the jobs” should be directed at him rather than at President Obama. This
would seem to be a classic case of the Rovian strategy of accusing someone of
doing precisely what it is you yourself are doing. Boehner has to know, of
course, that under his leadership the House has produced no legislation
whatsoever that would have led to the creation of jobs. And he also has to know
that he and his cronies in the House have deliberately refused to cooperate
with any attempt President Obama and the Democrats have proposed to create
jobs. If Republicans get away with blaming Obama for the failure to create jobs
they will have pulled off probably the greatest con job of all time. This is
not to say Obama is completely without fault, he could have pressed much harder
than he has. But to blame him for the failure of job creation is the height of
Republican hypocrisy.

As Republicans have
apparently surrendered to the Tea Party wing it is becoming increasingly
impossible to take them seriously. I mean, really, they expect us to
assassinate, hang, impeach, or deport President Obama, and no one in their
party stands up to tell them they are completely and totally batshit
crazy? (I have no idea where this
strange phrase originated but it seems to carry meaning of some kind). It is
understandable that some may not agree with what Obama has done, or wishes to
do, but he has done nothing that would lead anyone to believe he should be
impeached (assassinated or hung). It has become quite clear, at least to me,
that the Obama haters are motivated by almost exclusively by racism. There is
no other explanation for the venom and hatred directed at him. I would even
venture to say that those who hate him the most are those who know the least
about what it is they are talking about.

Obamacare is a good case in
point. This is so far from socialized medicine it is simply absurd to claim
otherwise. In fact, Obamacare would be much better characterized as "Insurancecare" as it basically gives the insurance industry some potentially 30
or 40 million more customers and does very little to control the outrageous
costs they claim for doing actually nothing for health care except shuffle a
lot of papers around and collect a percentage. There is no logical reason for
insurance companies to have anything whatsoever to do with health care.

I receive now, every day in
my email, requests for money, donations to the campaigns of many different
so-and-sos, the Democratic Party itself, and so on. These are now usually
couched in terms that imply that if I do not donate to them the Koch brothers
and their billionaire friends will win. This seems to imply that whoever spends
the most money will win, and perhaps that is true, although I do not like to
think so. In any case, it seems to me a more or less lost cause to try to
outspend them. I doubt small donations will accomplish that. The only way to
defeat them will be at the ballot box, not competing monetarily. They are
literally attempting to buy the Senate and House with their obscene wealth, and
they might succeed if voters do not go to the polls and defeat them. Money is
an issue, of course, but cannot be the most important issue in spite of the
corrupt Supreme Court’s attempt to make it so.

I confess I do not understand
what is going on. Congress now has a popularity rating somewhere immediately
below a snake’s belly or cancer, and for the most part Republicans lead the
list of incompetent, dishonest, obstructionistic, do-nothings, but at the same
time seem to believe they have a chance to capture the Senate and also keep
control of the House. Where does this optimism come from? Having alienated
Blacks, Hispanics, other minorities, immigrants, women, Gays and Lesbians, and
virtually everyone except relatively uneducated White men, how can they
possibly believe they can win anything? But don’t write them off, this is the
United States after all, an electorate that obviously has no idea what they are
doing or saying. But when your opponent is a Socialist, Communist, Fascist,
Foreign born, dictatorial, impeachable, lynchable, anti-Christ from outer
space, anything goes. It’s America the Beautiful, but only in English.

“The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be
taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then
it's good enough for me.”

Monday, February 03, 2014

I confess I am in the dark
about what is going on in the Middle East. Of course you could argue that being
a nobody, and living in an area as close to nowhere as possible, and having
virtually no news except the no news we get from the Main Media through
television and radio. I would inevitably be in the dark about most everything,
except, of course, the trials and tribulations of New Jersey Fats. I have no idea what is going on anywhere else,
especially in the Middle East, so I just
guess about it.

I am inclined to believe that
John Kerry is perhaps the worst, most inept Secretary of State we have ever
had. Apparently the Israelis hate him, as do the Palestinians, and they all
seem to agree that his suggestions for an agreement between them are
ridiculous, and perhaps they are. Similarly, at the same time he is trying to
deal with a solution to the Iranian problem he continues to threaten them with
war if they fail to live up to his (our) expectations, not a position that
could possibly please them or help. So, on the one hand he seems to want a solution
to these rather intractable problems, and on the other he keeps alienating the
various players on this complicated chessboard.

But what if, and a big if it
is, he is actually not the “bull in the china shop” he appears to be. What if
he and President Obama actually have a plan to bring about actual solutions to
these long-festering problems? What if they are actually maneuvering to force a
solution to these problems? It is pretty obvious that Israel is never going to
agree to a Palestinian state unless they are forced to do so. It is equally
obvious that Iran is not going to accept a solution imposed by the United
States with respect to their behavior, nuclear or otherwise.

How, then, could it be
possible to bring about solutions to these problems? On the one hand you must
convince Israel that you are not going to risk their security, or their racist
plans to claim the West Bank, and on the other hand you must convince them you
will not allow Iran to challenge Western hegemony in the Middle East. This is
no small task. It requires the most sensitive diplomacy coupled with the threat
of absolutely dire consequences should it fail. You must convince Israel that
it is in their long term interest to give up their dreams of expansion and
genocide (and some captured territory), as well as give in to a viable
Palestinian state, and you must also convince the Arabs and Israel that Iran,
having made peace with the U.S., will not unilaterally or importantly upset the
balance of power in the Middle East.

Could it be this is precisely
what Obama and Kerry are trying to diplomatically accomplish, however
surreptitiously? It would, of course, dramatically change the situation in the
Middle East. American and European hegemony would suffer if not disappear. But
as that is happening already, and there is nothing much we can do about it,
would it not be better to be a partner in the new Middle East than a has been
in the old?

Obviously Obama and Kerry
could not admit this was what they are trying to accomplish. The mindless
Congressional support for Israeli racism and (war) crimes would never agree to
such a solution, and the even more mindless demand for war against Iran by the
military/industrial/political complex (there is big money in war) would
likewise violently resist such a
sensible solution. I don’t know if this is what Obama and Kerry have in mind. I
hope it is. If they could succeed in solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem,
along with the Iranian situation, it would be one of the greatest diplomatic
triumphs of all time. Are Obama’s and Kerry’s threats of military action
against Iran, and threats of boycotts against Israel, just idle threats for
show, or for real? I know nothing. I am completely in the dark. I’m pretty
confident, however, that ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and his supporters are liars and
warmongers.